Our Newest Members

Our boating experience began with a small impeller driven boat purchased to explore the local uninhabited islands to collect the finest in gem quality seashells. The main thrust in taking the Coast Guard’s Safe Boating Course was the purchase of a larger boat(s) to go further into the Ten Thousand Islands to find better and more exotic shells. It served to introduce us to the bounty of diverse wildlife, seabirds and aquatic denizens that grace our waterways.

Phil has been a huge fan of powered catamarans as they are stable platforms and have shallow drafts, perfect for our local waterways. From Phil’s passion for award winning shell collecting, we have had an enduring fascination with boating that began in the late ‘90’s and continues today.

Both Ed and Theresa were born and raised in Michigan, Ed in Grand Rapids and Theresa in Saginaw. We both call Grand Rapids home and Marco Island our second home. Ed is a retired CPA and Theresa is a retired RN. Ed bought his condo at South Seas in1991. He is the boater in the family although Theresa loves watching the dolphins, birds and other life on and in the water.

Ed’s first boat, when he was 15, was a 15-foot Wagemaker with a 30 horsepower Mercury motor. It provided a lot of fun for about 15 years as a ski boat. Many other boats followed. Currently we explore the waters around Marco Island in a 20 foot Hurricane Sun Deck. We both look forward to making new friends at the Marco Bay Yacht Club and exploring the waters around Marco Island.

We began boating as a couples activity 40 years ago by teaching ourselves how to sail on a daysailer. We became certified sailers and have chartered boats on the Great Lakes and the Caribbean. Moved to Marco Island from the Cleveland Ohio area after retirement 8 years ago and chose it primarily for the access to water. Shortly after moving here we took on power boating with our Everglades 25. We spend summers on Chautauqua Lake in NY where we sail on a Precision 23 and fish with a Ranger. We have one son and one granddaughter living in Michigan who love visiting and boating with us.

Bruce grew up in Alpena Michigan which is in the northeast corner of the lower peninsula. Connie grew up in mid-western Ohio. We met when Bruce was fresh out of training as an orthopedic surgeon and was starting his practice in Ohio. We discovered Marco Island while flying over the area in the eighties and vowed to check it out as a place to live during retirement. The idea of having a house in Florida which would be on a waterway with direct access to the ocean seemed like a fantasy. We have been living on Marco Island since 2002 and still feel that way. Bruce has many fond boating memories from his days in Michigan and has enjoyed introducing Connie to the experience. We hope that by participating in group activities that we will be able to take trips and enjoy our boat in ways Connie would not otherwise be comfortable.

Becky and I live on Marco Island 5 months of the year and Holland, MI in summer months.  We have had a residence on Marco for 30 years.  We currently live at 1072 Dill Ct.

We have 4 children and 11 grandchildren.  I am chairman of Auto-Wares Group of Companies in Grand Rapids, MI.

Auto-Wares is in the automotive aftermarket business.  Becky is in the furniture business.  We both love boating and have 2 1/2 boats.  We share our Florida boat with Steve and Kathy Stark who are currently members of your club.

We look forward to making new friends by becoming a member of Marco Bay Yacht Club.

FuturePlans:
     Be happily married to Becky.
     Get all my grandchildren graduated from college debt free.
     To always cherish my family and friends.
     To make Auto-Wares Group of Companies the best they can be.
     To stay in good health and always have a Positive Attitude!

 IT HAS BEEN & STILL IS A BLAST!

Diane, a practicing Ob-Gyn, living in Boston, was told by a colleague ‘You need to meet Kirk!’ He had just moved to NYC as General Counsel for a public company. We were married 2 years later in 2007.

Both originally from New York, we each have lived in other major cities, including Boston, Chicago, and San Francisco. After medical school and residency, Diane settled in the Boston area to practice medicine. During this time, she discovered Cape Cod and sailing. Kirk also attended schools in the northeast (Cornell undergrad & Harvard Law). As an undergrad he had sailed around the world with Semester at Sea. He discovered Marco Island in the 1970”s, immediately fell ln love with the island, spending vacations on Marco with his growing family, eventually building a home in the Tigertail area.

We both share a love of travel. Between us, we have travelled to every continent except Australia. Diane voyaged to Antarctica in the early 2000”s and was awestruck by its beauty and remoteness, at the bottom of the world. Kirk has been a longtime patron of Cunard and loves taking the Queen Mary 2 ocean-liner on the transatlantic crossing from NYC to Southampton UK. He has made this crossing many times. This year we will go transatlantic from Miami to Barcelona, then spend 4 weeks in Spain and France, coming back on the Queen Mary 2.

We have a blended family, with two grown children. Our daughter is married, giving us a grandson, and two grand-dogs. We retired several years ago, splitting our time between Marco Island and Cape Cod. In 2022 we accepted an opportunity to join Freedom Boat Club, and have become enthusiastic boaters, busy learning the waterways around SW Florida.

Beth and Irv met when Beth was a 15-year-old sophomore in high school in Pennsylvania (1959) and Irv was a freshman at Penn State University. Irv Graduated from Temple University with a Bachelor of Science degree.  Beth has an M.S. in Psychology of Reading from Temple University.

They married in 1964 in Pennsylvania.  Together they have 3 children and 5 grandchildren. Irv was a real estate developer and Beth was a Reading Specialist.

When they retired to Marco Island, Irv served 2 terms on the City planning Board including one as Chairman.  He was also President of the Jewish Congregation of Marco Island and was also a founding member of the Coalition for Quality Public Education and an organization known as World Citizens for Global Peace.

As an advocate for local Education, Beth started the coalition for Quality Public Education and was president for 5 years and continues as a board member. Beth also started and is Chair of Stand up for Justice, now in its 14^th year. She is also a member of Woman’s Cultural Alliance and the Jewish Federation of Naples serving as Community Relations Counsel

They have owned a 21’ Hurricane boat for about 20 years which they keep docked at their house. They are looking forward to meeting new people and enjoying their life with fellow boaters.

We are Mike and Maria Adamson and look forward to joining Marco Bay Yacht Club for the social and boating events as we continue to enjoy our community and home here on Marco Island. Both of us grew up boating in Minnesota on the various lakes and rivers throughout the state. We have been boating in and around Marco Island for the past 20 years. We have owned and operated various sized boats with our current boat being a Grady White 336Canyon. We enjoy fishing and cruising and are always ready to learn even more about the endless waterways here in SW Florida. We take pride in safe boating and being able to share that with others. We look forward to our potential membership.

We are looking forward to joining Marco Bay Yacht Club. I have been sailing the great Lakes all my like.

We are from Sturgeon, Wisconsin in Lake Michigan. We own a 56’ Galleon moored in Sturgeon Bay and a 28.5 Grady White on Marco.

I am a past commodore at the Sturgeon Bay Yacht Club, with 900 members and a facility with dining and a bar. The club is very active in sail training and Various other boating activities.

Sandy and Glen Cook escape the Minnesota winters and enjoy the winters in Marco Island.

They have been boating on the 10,000 lakes in Minnesota all theirlives and go as often as the weather permits. We still work part time helping our son with his business. Glen serves on the Ronald McDonald House for the upper midwest and both of us support several not for profit organizations both in Minnesota and here on Marco Island.

They enjoy spending time with our three children and eight grandchildren both here and back home. (After the snow melts!).

We are Wisconsin natives. Sandy spent a career in education first as a Spanish teacher in Middle and high school, then after raising four sons she was a counselor in an elementary school until retirement.

Dave spent his career in the dairy business. Born and raised on a dairy farm then spent his entire career in the dairy manufacturing business. (cheese, butter, etc) Retired December 31, 2014.

We have a home on an inland lake in Wisconsin and have been avid boaters and watersports people all of our lives. We currently own a ski boat and pontoon in Wisconsin. I have been a member of the Freedom Boat Club here in Marco from 2015 – 2022. I purchased our current boat in March of 2022.

We have four sons and eleven wonderful grandchildren.

We have been Florida residents since 2015 spending 6 to 7 months here and the balance with family back in Wisconsin.

Doug and Kim are from southwestern Ohio and come to Marco Island for the winter.

Kim is retired as a GM dealweship owner/operator and Doug is retired from a career in Urology. we have eight children and manage our family farms and have the Mittelhof Gallery of Transportation.

We are life long natives of Indiana, living in the northeast side of Indianapolis and Fishers since 1988. We have one son who is married with two wondrful grandchildren. We retired in 2017 after the sale of our heating and ventilation manufacturing company. We’ve been boaters since childhood and look forward to the adventures ahead.

Hello, our names are Suzy and George Koprash.

We have been boating out of Everglades City for a few years but now we harbor our 48 Sea Ray sedan bridge at the Marco Island Marina slip B101.

We have been cruising quite a bit over the past year, but we are anxious to meet some like-minded people and go on the cruises the club has selected.

We started our boating in the Great Lakes many years ago and have cruised from Sault Ste. Marie to Chicago and SSM to Detroit and then further to Lake Erie.

We look forward to meeting you.

Betty Ann and Jon hail from Cape Cod, MA, where they both have been boating since they were children.  It was their love of boating that drew them to Marco.  Being able to boat every day is a gift they are grateful for.

Mary and Brad Shaw are full-time Marco Island residents; Mary a retired teacher and Brad a retired communications executive. They enjoy boating, traveling and volunteering with several local and national nonprofits, as well as spending time with family and friends both in Marco and in their former hometown of Atlanta.

Sylvia and I moved to Marco in December 2021 from Orlando where we had lived since 1994.  I grew up in CT and graduated from Bentley College where I met Sylvia.  Sylvia grew up in Puerto Rico.  We were married a year after we both graduated and lived in Worcester, MA for 3 years.  We then moved to Monroe, CT to be closer to family where we lived for 7 years before being transferred to Orlando for work.  I spent 30 years working for a manufacturing company as Chief Financial Officer and VP.

We have three kids ranging in age from 25-32.  Our oldest son, Mark, is married and lives in Haines City, FL.  Our middle child, Kyle, lives in Orlando, while our youngest, Nicole, lives in North Carolina.

We chose Marco Island as a retirement destination to be closer to a west coast beach.  We enjoy the outdoors, traveling, and boating.  I like to fish and look forward to exploring new areas around Marco.

Formerly from Delaware, their family moved to Fort Myers in 2013 where their two girls graduated from FGCU.  Now retired, Steve and Kathy were drawn to Marco by both the island appeal and life on the water.  They enjoy Pickleball, time on the water, and are looking forward to welcoming their first grandchild in March of 2022

Dean is an accomplished senior executive and a thought leader in the information technology/cyber industry. He has more than 40 years of hands-on experience managing large-scale technology engineering, design and implementation initiatives in support of mission-critical Intelligence, Defense, and Civilian agencies. Dean has a well-earned reputation as a subject matter expert in big data analytics and insider threat solutions. Currently, Dean is Executive Vice President at Counter Threat Solutions in Reston, VA. where he manages day-to-day business operations and strategic business development. Prior to CTS, Dean was Senior Vice President, Strategic Development for Preferred Systems Solutions, National Security Group. Dean has also successfully managed Government programs for ManTech International and Oracle USA’s National Security Group. In addition, he was responsible for 3 years of unprecedented growth of the professional services business at Unisys, and has led network and system engineering, software development, and hardware integration teams at STG, DynCorp, and EDS.
Dayna is a experienced business accountant and is currently performing as Corporate Controller for Hinge Marketing located in Herndon, VA. Dayna manages all corporate financials to include revenue management, cash flow, payroll, accounts payable, and accounts receivable. Dayna has a developed a successful career leveraging her real-world financial experience assisting multiple businesses in the Washington, DC metro area execute successfully and profitably. She also serves on the Key Marco CDD as the Treasurer.
Dean and Dayna reside in Marco Island, and have 4 lovely daughters with families living in various cities across the U.S. Dean and Dayna are avid motorcyclists and have traveled to the far reaches of the continental U.S. on their Harley Davidsons. Dayna is artistically gifted and her passion is making beautiful stained glass art.
Boating Experience
Dean and Dayna have been hobbyist boaters throughout their lives and recently acquired a 2018 Crownline E29XS with twin 250HP Mercury outboards. They are actively learning the Ten Thousand Island backwaters and thrilled to explore all of the beautiful islands of the Southwest Florida coast.

We are lifelong boaters from the corn fields of Iowa.  We have three daughters and 10 grandchildren. We attend Family Church on the Island and enjoy spending time with our family in Marco.

David and I are both from South Bend, Indiana. We currently live at Diamond Lake in Michigan in the summer and Marco in the winter,  since 2015.
We have two sons and 6 grandchildren.
David is a retired owner of Indiana Carton Company and I am a retired fitness and dance instructor.
We were both raised on inland lakes and love being on the water!

JR began his career as a CPA with Price Waterhouse. After a number of years in public accounting he transitioned to the private business sector founding, building and selling a number of startup companies in different industries.

In 2003 while working on a software consulting project for a US based company, he began traveling back and forth to southern China. Seeing opportunity there, he decided to relocate to China to pursue yet another start up opportunity. That enterprise, Chinese Pacific Limited, began doing business in April of 2003 and continues to operate to this day. JR is semi-retired.

JR was introduced to Jenny by the Chinese wife of one of JR’s US business associates. Jenny is a Chinese citizen and speaks fluent Mandarin, Cantonese and English. The two hit it off together although at the time JR spoke no Chinese and Jenny spoke no English. A year after meeting each other and after some language classes taken by both, that problem was remedied. Jenny joined Chinese Pacific as a bookkeeper and supplier liaison in 2004.

The two were married in 2008. They have homes in Zhongshan China, Payson Arizona and Marco Island Florida and split their time among them as business circumstances and the weather dictates. They have three adult sons between them.

Maureen and I bought a waterfront Condo on Marco Island in 2009. Soon after we bought the boat we presently have now.

Maureen and I both lost our spouses in 2001, and met a few years later. After numerous years living together, we got married. Maureen was never a boater before we met, bur this changed fast. I myself, had my first boat at 15, and since then there was never a year without one.

We now have a home in Orange, Connecticut where we spend our summers. The other 7 months we spend on Marco Island. Our boat is on a lift just in front of our condo.

Chris and Anna are originally from Wisconsin, moving to Marco Island in 2012.Chris is a retired president of a private media college in Madison Wisconsin and Anna is a retired registered nurse, working 35 years in various roles, most recently Infection Prevention. During our working years we enjoyed boating on the lakes while the weather was good.

We both enjoy boating and Chris is an avid fisherman which drew us to Marco Island for retirement. Chris learned to love fishing and boating growing up on the Mississippi river in La Crosse Wisconsin. Also, Chris was in the Marco Coast Guard auxiliary for 5 years becoming a certified crew member.
We are fortunate to have some of our grandchildren nearby in Cape Coral, 2 boys and 1 girl.

Jan and I met during our college days at Oregon State and  the University of Oregon through a common friend.  We were married in Springfield, Oregon 2/1/1969 and have been blessed with three daughters, two of whom live in the Chicago area and the other in South Bend, Indiana, where our family moved to join my family’s business (Gates Automotive) in 1981.  I served, along with my brother, overseeing our five dealership locations in South Bend, Mishawaka, Granger, and now Elkhart, Indiana, until I retired in 2010.  My son in law who is married to our oldest daughter and two of my brother’s sons represent the fourth generation of our family in the business today.  

We are also blessed with twelve grandchildren, the oldest of which is twenty seven and the youngest is a one year old.  During our time in college, Jan and I each individually made the life changing discovery of knowing God personally by committing our lives to Him.  Our family, including our daughters, their husbands, and children are actively growing in their faith through involvement in a local church fellowship.  We recognize and are thankful for God’s hand of blessing and mercy upon our lives each day.

Our first boat was a 14 foot Glastron with 55 horse power Johnson outboard motor purchased in the early 1970’s.  Most of our boating has been done in Michigan on inland lakes and Lake Michigan.  We have greatly enjoyed boating here Florida.  Our first Florida boat was a 27 foot Grady-White.  We look forward to future cruises with the club and getting better acquainted with other members.

Jim and Kelly are from Colorado and enjoy trading in our winter parkas for shorts and t-shirts.  Jim grew up in an Army family and spent some of his childhood in Virginia Beach, and Kelly is a native Southern Californian who moved to land-locked Colorado in her mid-twenties. We decided to buy our retirement home on Marco in August 2020 after owning a townhome in Naples for the three prior years. Jim has spent most of his career in telecommunications and currently works as a Telecom Manager while Kelly is with Charles Schwab as a Treasury Manager. Both of us look forward to the day when we can list our new occupations as “retired”. Between the two of us, we have four girls, ranging in age from 19 to 26, and all of them live in different states in the western US. Jim has been boating most of his life and really enjoys being out on the water and fishing. Kelly was introduced to boating when she met Jim six years ago and also loves to be on the water, along with the opportunities it provides for shelling, fishing, dolphin watching, turtle encounters, and enjoying a good book in the sunshine. We look forward to spending time in paradise and meeting new people with the Marco Bay Yacht Club.

We are from Northfield, Mn and purchased our first home on Marco in 2004. In 2015 we became residents and now spend 7 months in Florida. Rob has been in the trucking business for 44 years and Jean, after 24 years in banking, joined the company to allow us to spend more time here. In 2019 we both retired and we are transitioning ownership of the company to our two boys. We have the boys, their wives & 6 grandchildren we enjoy spending time with when we are back up north. We started boating with a 28’ Bayliner in 1998 in Red Wing, Mn. Our last boat on the river was a 2005 500 SeaRay Sedan Bridge which we sold in 2014. We have a 30’ Bennington Pontoon with twins which we keep at our home on Barfield. We are looking forward to gaining new friends to share our love of boating.

Jackie and I lived in Noblesville, IN for over 50 years. After graduation from Purdue University, with a degree in Industrial Management, I became involved in the automotive industry developing a group of four dealerships in Indiana. I have been active in business locally and nationally, serving on corporate boards including NADA Executive Committee, National Dealer Council and Huntington Bank of Indiana. We have been involved in community organizations, serving as President of Noblesville, IN Chamber of Commerce, Riverview Hospital Foundation, Conner Prairie Museum (a Smithsonian Institute Affiliate), 50 Club of Hamilton County (provides support to 1st responders and their families). We purchased our first property on Marco 20 years ago and became active in the community. I am presently President of the Riviera Condo Association of Hideaway Beach. I was involved with the Marco Island Marina Association and a founding member of the Marco Island Yacht Club. Experienced in all aspects of permitting and construction, I was the owner builder of a 520 unit self storage facility. Also formed a Riviera volunteer committee to serve as our own general contractor for $6.5M damage from hurricane Irma (saving each member approximately $10,000) I started boating as a teenager and lived on an inland lake for 40 years. I have owned multiple boats; (6) runabouts, (6)35′ foot and over from sport fishing to 52′ Express Cruisers, (3) wooden antique boats. I have taken several Coast Guard Auxiliary courses and test several years ago. I have captained our boat to the Bahamas and made a couple of trips from Lake Michigan to Marco (1900 mi). Last trip was fall of 2019. Looking forward to being a member of Marco Boy Yacht Club.